A Family Portrait sitting

ziggy53

I was contacted for this session the day after Christmas, for the shoot the following day. The family is just so much fun I had to share some of the images:

roentarre

Excellent lighting and it is interesting to see them all wearing white.

Clean image and well illuminated

joshhuntnm

Nice shots. I like the floor shot best.

ziggy53

roentarre wrote:

Excellent lighting and it is interesting to see them all wearing white.

Clean image and well illuminated

Thanks. it was their idea to use a black and/or white theme for wardrobe. Not exactly the photographer's friends for tones but I know how to light for it and process for it now. The on-screen is not quite as nice as are the prints, which is the intended medium.

ziggy53

joshhuntnm wrote:

Nice shots. I like the floor shot best.

Thanks. Lighting that was especially tricky as the correct lighting for one subject is contrary for the other. Still, I'm happy with the results.

Scott_Quier

Hey, you done good - like you need me to tell you that. Their fun spirit really comes through in the photos - that's the mark of a very good photographer!

divamum

No doubt that the fun shines through! I especially like the floor shot, and the last one of mom/dad (grandma/grandpa?)

Very cool to see your pix of yours, Ziggy - I'm used to you being the Fount of Knowledge On All Things Hardware bow but realise I don't think I've ever seen you share any of your own stuff outside that context. Thanks!!thumb

ziggy53

Scott_Quier wrote:

Hey, you done good - like you need me to tell you that. Their fun spirit really comes through in the photos - that's the mark of a very good photographer!

Thanks Scott.

When they first called it was just to shoot the grand kids. By the time I showed up the next day it was up to 13 people, ... in a living room? rofl I won't show that one because it doesn't meet my standards.

All told I counted 42 distinct poses with the different people combinations (and lots of minor variations).

ziggy53

divamum wrote:

No doubt that the fun shines through! I especially like the floor shot, and the last one of mom/dad (grandma/grandpa?)

Very cool to see your pix of yours, Ziggy - I'm used to you being the Fount of Knowledge On All Things Hardware bow but realise I don't think I've ever seen you share any of your own stuff outside that context. Thanks!!thumb

Thanks DivaMum.

Yes, those are the grandparents of (most of) the kids above. I don't always feel like showing what I shoot but these were just a nice session (except when it came to post-processing.)

Truth be know, these are some of my ex-inlaws and I was very happy they remembered me when they needed a photographer.

Scott_Quier

ziggy53 wrote:

Thanks Scott.

When they first called it was just to shoot the grand kids. By the time I showed up the next day it was up to 13 people, ... in a living room? rofl I won't show that one because it doesn't meet my standards.

All told I counted 42 distinct poses with the different people combinations (and lots of minor variations).

Sounds like different combinations you run into after the wedding ceremony. It's almost impossible to make those look good, especially in such close quarters!

DavidS

Very nice!! Excellent lighting.

joshhuntnm

What is your lighting set up?

ziggy53

DavidS wrote:

Very nice!! Excellent lighting.

Thanks David. Lighting is an extremely important component to any session.

ziggy53

joshhuntnm wrote:

What is your lighting set up?

All of these were 3 lights, but used in different ways.

For the smaller groups I used 2 studio strobes. Key light was camera left, 60" shoot-through umbrella, ceiling height. Fill was camera right but flanking wide because of the reflective background, 45" reflective umbrella. Trigger/bounce was an on camera speedlight. The bounce added a little bit of hair light. The speedlight was manually controlled.

An incident flash meter was used to gauge ratios. The camera's histogram was used to verify exposure.

The overhead shot required me to move the fill light in towards the scene but still off to the side. The bounce light was adjusted to bounce into the central corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall above the fireplace.

The large group shots, which I didn't show, caused me to move the key and fill lights to the extremes of the room and produced a lot of post-processing work and only marginal results. The family was warned of the results and I showed them the "chimp" so they could see the problem of so many people in such a small room. the main problem was that the 2 people closest to the key light are pretty bleached and required quite a bit of work to recover acceptable skin tones.